“As you pointed out,” Sherry said, “I’m a Warrior, Claudia. And as such, in times of danger, what I say goes.”
“Danger?” Claudia scoffed. “What danger? Are we going to be molested by a moth?”
“Claudia!” the brunette spoke up. “Sherry is right, and you know it.”
“Nobody tells me what to do, Jean!” Claudia snapped. Before Sherry or Jean could intervene, she angrily stomped into the forest.
Jean stepped up to Sherry. “Don’t take her outburst personally. Claudia is upset because she knows she won’t be accepted as a Healer. Our apprenticeship, our probationary period, is over in a week. And there’s no way Claudia will be certified.”
Sherry watched Claudia disappear behind a broad pine tree. “Why did the Elders even accept her as a trainee? She’s too damn immature to be a Healer.”
Jean shrugged. “You know the Elders. They probably wanted her to at least have a chance at it.”
“And her mother is real close to Kant, and Kant was the Elder who recommended Claudia for Healer status,” Sherry stated.
Jean seemed shocked by the implication. “The Elders would never allow anyone to unduly influence their judgment.”
Sherry started walking into the woods. “The Elders aren’t infallible,” she said over her left shoulder.
Jean stayed on Sherry’s heels. “If you’d been born in the Family, you’d never make such an accusation.”
Sherry’s lips tightened. True, she’d been born and raised in Canada, in a small town called Sundown located across the border from Minnesota.
True too was the fact her nomination and acceptance as a Warrior could be attributed to the influence exerted by her husband, the Family’s preeminent gunfighter, the Warrior known as Hickok. Perhaps, if she had been reared in the close-knit Family, she wouldn’t presume to question an Elder’s integrity. Jean’s mild rebuke stung her, and for a few moments she was distracted, weighing the validity of the reproof instead of concentrating on the vegetation around them, on their immediate situation.
The mistake cost her.
“Where did Claudia go?” Jean asked.
The query brought Sherry out of herself. She searched the landscape ahead. “Claudia! Where are you?” she called out.
Claudia didn’t answer.
“Knowing Claudia’s temper the way I do,” Jean mentioned, “she might just ignore you.”
“She does,” Sherry said, “and she’ll live to regret it.”
“Claudia!” Jean shouted. “Come back here!”
Sherry moved past a large pine, then up a low incline. She reached the top of the mound and glanced down. And froze.
Claudia was lying on her back at the base of the grassy mound. Her throat was slit, and blood was gushing from her neck and flowing down the front of her blue shirt and spilling over her shoulders. Her wide, lifeless eyes gaped at the azure sky.
Jean bumped into Sherry, then spotted the corpse. “Dear Spirit!” she exclaimed, horrified. “Claudia!”
Sherry twisted and shoved Jean from the mound. “Run!” she ordered.
“Head for the Home!”
Jean hesitated, too stunned by Claudia’s death to realize her own danger.
But Sherry knew. Her intuition had been right! Some menace was lurking in the woods! And whoever had slain Claudia had to be nearby, ready to pounce again! She crouched, cradling the M.A.C. 10.
Not a moment too soon.
A soldier in a brown uniform burst from the brush seven yards to her right.
In the instant Sherry spied him, she recognized the uniform as belonging to a Russian trooper, and knew the gun in his hand was an AK-47. Hickok had told her all about his experiences in the Capital, when he’d been captured by the Russians. Her mind processed the information in the split second it took her to react, and her finger squeezed the trigger when the Russian was still six yards off.
The Soviet soldier was stopped in midstride as the slugs tore through his chest. His ears never heard the metallic chattering of the M.A.C. 10, because he was dead before the sound could reach them. He toppled to the hard ground without uttering a word.
Sherry swiveled, knowing there would be more, and there was another one, coming at her from her left, holding the barrel of his AK-47 as if it were a club, his legs pounding up the mound, and she fired when he was only two feet from her. The M.A.C. 10 caught him in the face, and he was flipped backwards by the impact, sprawling onto his back and sliding to a halt against a tree.
Jean!
Sherry spun, hoping the Russians hadn’t gone after the aspiring Healer, but she was too late.
A stocky soldier had grabbed Jean from the rear. His left arm was clamped around her neck, while his right plunged a bayonet into her body again and again and again.
Sherry was about to let him have it in the head, when she heard the padding of rushing feet behind her. She whirled, but before she could complete the turn someone plowed into her and bore her to the earth.
Strong arms gripped her wrists, preventing her from using the M.A.C. 10.
She glimpsed a youthful face above her, and then something was pressed over her nose and mouth, something soft with a slight odor. Sherry heaved and strained, attempting to buck her captor, but another set of hands grabbed her shoulders and held her fast.
“We have her!” someone exulted.
Sherry’s senses were swimming. She tried to focus, to use the martial fighting skills taught to her by Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, but her sluggish mind refused to obey her mental commands. Gasping, she made one last valiant effort to rise, then lost consciousness.
“We have her!” Grozny repeated, still holding her shoulders.
The young trooper, straddling her waist, nodded.
Lieutenant Lysenko, crouched to her right, removed the chloroform-soaked white cloth from her face and stood. “We must leave right away!”
“What’s the hurry?” Grozny asked. “Shouldn’t we bury our comrades first?”
“Fool!” Lysenko barked. “Do you want to end up like them?” He pointed to the two dead men. “The Family will have heard the shooting in the Home! They will send their Warriors after us!” He paused and gazed at the unconsious blonde. “She is quite formidable. If the other Warriors are half as good as her, we are in trouble! Come! Grozny, you carry her. Serov, you take the lead. We must reach the rendezvous point and signal for the copter to come and pick us up.”
Serov grabbed his AK-47 from the ground where it had fallen, then hurried to the southeast.
Grozny grunted as he draped the blonde’s body over his left shoulder.
He retrieved his AK-47, clutching it in his right hand.
“Go!” Lysenko directed. “I will cover you.” He picked up his AK-47 and waited while Grozny hastened into the trees. So far, so good. They had the live captive General Malenkov wanted. Leaving the dead men behind was regrettable, but it could not be helped. The Family would learn who was responsible for taking one of their vaunted Warriors, but what could they do about it? Nothing. According to the files relayed by the spy in Denver, the family only numbered about seven dozen members. Only 15 of them were Warriors. And 15 fighters, no matter how adept at their craft they might be, could hardly hope to oppose the military might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Loud voices arose from the direction of the Home.
Lysenko followed his men, constantly surveying the foliage behind him, alert for any hint of pursuit. He thought of the reception awaiting him in Washington, and he was pleased. This mission would definitely boost his career, perhaps lead to a speedy promotion. Maybe an assignment on General Malenkov’s personal staff. The prospect was exciting. General Malenkov was a man of considerable stature in the North American Central Committee, responsible for administering the occupational forces in America. The Soviets had been fortunate during the war; they’d been able to invade and hold a sizeable segment of the eastern U.S. New England, a portion of New York, southern Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, parts of Illinois, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as sections of North and South Carolina were all under Soviet hegemony. The Soviets had intended to conquer the entire country, but their drive through Alaska and Canada had been stopped. And their push into the deep South had been resisted every step of the way, and eventually halted, by the determined Southerners.